Page 959 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 21 April 2021
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MS VASSAROTTI: Thank you for the question. The issue of supporting our tenants is a really important issue. Tenant liaison officers and housing managers work with tenants. There are regular inspections that happen, looking at both the physical elements of the property and supporting tenants to maintain their tenancy. As part of that process, a discussion happens with tenants that are a part of the property. If there are any changes to tenancy arrangements, that is discussed with housing managers.
Arts—funding
MS CLAY: My question is to the Minister for Arts. ACT artists, especially musicians and performers, are really struggling to make ends meet due to COVID. Making a living from playing gigs became almost impossible when most of those gigs dried up. Wages and vacancies are down in the arts sector and there is no recovery yet in the arts. I was really pleased, Minister Cheyne, to see your announcement providing $750,000 in funding for arts venues, and I was glad that some of that funding is tied to funding artists themselves. The Greens included a direct Jobs for Artists program in the parliamentary and government agreement, to build arts careers and provide some long-term strategic support for Canberra’s creative industries. Is this funding announcement part of a direct funding for artists model?
MS CHEYNE: I thank Ms Clay for the question and for her interest in and, indeed, her advocacy for and her commitment to the arts in the ACT. We are really pleased with the announcement today of the Amp It Up fund. I think one of the really important things to note is that we want to support artists’ careers. We want to support the viability and the sustainability of artists’ careers, and that includes ensuring there are places and spaces that are also sustainable and viable where artists can perform and put on their work, but also that those venues can be attracting not just local talent but interstate talent as well, because that brings with it other benefits too.
This is not an announcement about direct support for artists; this is an announcement about funding live music venues through that, with up to 100 per cent of the funding that venues can apply for going to artists. That is for venues to then pay the artists that they are programming.
MS CLAY: Minister, what proportion of the government’s total arts budget directly funds artists?
MS CHEYNE: Thank you for the question. I will get that exact figure for Ms Clay, but we do spend about $10 million in grants for arts and artists every single year. In addition, last year there was more than $7.6 million total in COVID-19 support for the Canberra arts sector. But I will determine that exact proportion for Ms Clay and respond soon.
DR PATERSON: Minister, could you give some more detail about how Amp It Up will work?
MS CHEYNE: I thank Dr Paterson for her own interest in the arts and, indeed, this announcement that we were very proud to make today. Amp It Up is $700,000 of
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